Epic achievement, for naught!

[Fat Guy]

In last night's game I witnessed a truly epic achievement. A Warhammer has just suffered an ammo explosion (CASE saved the 'Mech) giving the pilot his fourth and fifth hits. He then proceeded to make both consciousness checks, rolling a ten and eleven exactly!

Unfortunately, the ammo explosion occurred in the heat phase as a result of the 'Mech going right off the heat scale (failed the eight or better roll) and the end result would have been the same if the pilot was conscious or not: immobile target -4 to hit.   #P


Anyone else have a story of a wasted epic achievement?

[Empyrus]

Does unconscious fallen enemy Hunchback on ground and me failing to kill it with an Orion count?

Hell, i even got a headshot critical, that landed on the small laser on the Hunchy's head....

The best part is that my Orion blew up from an ammo explosion with easiest target number. Next, the Hunchback wakes up, and walks away retreating from the map, sans arms and side torsos.

[Caedis Animus]

I had a 4/5 Grasshopper taking on that twin LB10X Hatamoto from the Sword and Dragon campaign, and was one shot away from destroying it; The very turn before the decisive killing blow was about to be landed, the LRM-5 ammo cooked off.

I was in the middle of dumping the ammo, and that Grasshopper was also the last, best hope, and that was the first ammo check. Every turn we were last to go, every turn the Hatamoto had the Grasshopper in his rear arc. The only reason why he got away with even less damage than he should have was because our Awesome got KO'd by the first head hit, and somehow couldn't wake up from that for five-plus turns.

Another one was glorious for me, but only near-glorious for my friend. He had a Guillotine IIC headcap a Hunchback 4G in the first round of combat, only for the Guillotine IIC to try going after my Lament, as I had my mech burst through a 2-level building to engage the Guillotine. We both got great hits in; He got a CT TAC on my Lament, and I headcapped his Guillotine. Unfortunately, his TAC did nothing to me (Flubbed the crit roll), and he had his BV sinked into the Guillotine. (It was a 4000 BV pickup game, all pilots at 3/4 and not counting towards BV.)

[Mendrugo]

Two from the same fight:

Commando ran up behind a Hitman and punched through the rear armor, critting the LRM ammo.  Using the THB rules, engine exploded and took out the Commando as well.

Huron Warrior pushed my Catapult off a cliff and stood on the edge to fire down the next turn.  Catapult landed on its back, facing up.  We house ruled that it made sense for the Catapult to fire lasers at the Huron Warrior even without arms to prop, given the position.  Laser barrage sliced off Huron Warrior's leg.  Rolled for falling - straight forward.  Off the cliff.  Right onto my prone Catapult. 

Clean up on aisle two.

In a Solaris arena duel, two No Dachis square off, both massively overheating with alpha strike barrages.  Coming to point blank range, both swing swords at each other.  Mine hits - location, head.  I win!!  Then he rolls - hits.  Location: head.  Simultaneous mutual decapitation.

[RoundTop]

Was playing in a campaign, using the Mechwarrior RPG system for our pilots.

One player had to leave early, so we took control of his mech. It got hit in the torso and kicked off an ammo explosion. CASE handled it, but still two pilot hits, which in the RPG system was two hits to the head.

We roll and due to 6s being re-rolled, it ended up with the pilot having moderate brain damage, never able to pilot again.  Well that isn't good, so we used an Edge to force a re-roll of the damage (If no 6s were rolled, or only just one, it would have been fine).  Well.... all 6s.  the pilot was a vegetable right there.

[Ruger]

I had several in the MechWarrior campaign in which I created Ruger...for instance, I run my Thunder unknowingly through a minefield, managing to avoid all the mines...only to stop right in front of a camouflaged hole concealing a Banshee...who then runs out, and proceeds to land two punches directly to my head...fortunately, I managed to roll boxcars to eject in time...

Ruger

[Church14]

I played as part of a campaign for about 2 years until I had to move. During the campaign, my slightly modified Defiance had destroyed something like 19 mechs and killed 14 of the pilots. Some even on purpose.

So, for the last match, the new player I brought into the game had his axman with me in the woods out in front of everyone. I knocked out an enemy marauder with a fluke headshot and decided to murder another pilot. When I targeted his head, I hit with every single weapon I had (save SRMs). Not a one rolled 6-7-8. I ended up having every weapon hit the rear center torso, completely cored the mech and it stackpoled. My now smoking hot and near armorless Defiance stood next to the new guy's axman which had received two engine hits. He asked if this was how things normally go.

[Iron Mongoose]

The nearist thing I can think of is a few occasions of long drawn out battles with or against high end heavy and assualt mechs.  I shot off all the armor, most of the structure, crits galore, and you're to the point where you take aim with your big gun knowing that any hit will kill it, and get the head!  More over, at least once the head still had the full 9 points of armor, while the whole torso had less than ten points of structure, and the mech survived while a body hit would have been fatal.

[Vonshroom]

I actually had one fairly recently. We had a three way free for all with 3 players controlling 3 mechs each. One heavy one medium and one light. We placed four map sheets together, the forested one, one of kat wylders maps, and two classic
'battletech maps" (the ones with the lake in the middle)

I rolled with a Grasshopper, Dervish, and Panther. Facing my friends K2 Catapult, Vindicator, and Spider & my Dads Warhammer, Vindicator, and Firestarter.

Anyways we all started in different corners. I moved my mechs together to the edge of a small grove of trees in the forested section of the map over two turns of positioning. My friend moved his Spider last, and jumped up on one of the hills into my line of sight. Exactly 21 hexes from my grasshopper. Declare firing for my LRM5, The only weapon in range this turn. Mods meant I needed a 12 to hit, rolls a 12, rolls for missiles hit, 11 (5 missiles hit) rolls location, 12. Head hit. Blew out some sensors but the Spider survives.

Positioning ensues and I get another 12 to hit on the Spider. I fire the LRM5 again and get the same sequence of rolls, decapping spidey.

The game goes on and my Panther gets caught out of position and get's wrecked contributing little. My Dervish goes down the next turn and while landing some good shots fails to put anyone down.

Over the next few turns my Grasshopper manages to systematically decapitate every mech on the field My friends K2,with a medium and then a large laser in the same turn, followed by my dads Vindicator with the  Large critting the cockpit, then the Warhammer with a Large that crits the cockpit. Miraculously up until killing the Warhammer very little damage had been dealt to the Hopper, all in armor. The Warhammer got the Hoppers arm.

By this time both my dad and my friend have horrified expressions on their face as they both turn against the headcapping Grasshopper. I decide to split my fire and Fire my lasers at my friends Vindicator (which took an LRM5 head hit earlier from the Hopper.) and get a medium to connect. Boom cockpit. The LRMs manage to hit my dads remaining mech, the Firestarter and I get a 2 on the location table and then rack up 2 engine hits.

I get some pounding that turn and lose a few movement points. I lose initiative and the Firestarter runs behind me and tacs my gyro with a small laser. Mech down.

Somehow my Grasshopper managed to headcap 5 out of the 6 mechs opposing me, with no pilots managing to survive, and a badly beat to hell firestarter ends his reign of terror.

It was a fun game though!

[Kovax]

I recall one Historical Miniatures Game Society convention game where an Awesome and a Marauder rounded respective corners and had line of sight at medium range.  The AWS unloaded 3 PPC, and the Marauder fired 2.  The AWS connected with 2 of the 3 PPCs, and rolled twice for boxcars.  One headcapped Marauder without a point of damage anywhere else.  We then resolved the return fire, of which only one PPC hit.  Boxcars, followed by a successful critical check and a cockpit hit.  Essentially their spectacular successes negated each other, by taking out both 'Mechs.